Amazon Is Turning Into Google (GOOG)

Monday

Aug 25, 2014 at 7:55 PM

Steve Kovach

Tell me which company this sounds like:

A company that...

Has its own mobile operating system for tablets and smartphones.
Has its own app store.
Sells digital music, books, movies, and TV shows.
Will soon have an online ad network.
Created a way to accept payments with a smartphone.
Owns the servers that act as the backbone for several major apps and startups and even parts of the CIA.
Is experimenting with drones.

It's not Google. It's Amazon.

But just like Google has expanded beyond search into everything from finding ways to cheat death to making cars that can drive themselves, Amazon has been increasingly expanding beyond its core e-commerce business.

And in recent months, that only seems to be speeding up.

Amazon's $970 million purchase of Twitch, a site that lets you watch people play video games via a live stream, is its latest push into original video content and a move to transform itself into part media company. It's a longer-term bet that the trend of watching stuff online versus cable will continue.

Add that on top of the stuff listed above, and Amazon suddenly sounds less like an online store for buying books and gifts and more like a company trying to insert itself into everything you do online. It sounds very Google-y.

Plus ...

There's experimentation with same-day delivery, grocery delivery, and point of sale systems for brick-and-mortar retailers. Those are all things Google is working on or has at least experimented with.

The only difference, of course, is that Google is wildly profitable while Amazon continues to post losses each quarter. (Next quarter could be a doozy. Amazon said to expect at least a $410 million operating loss.)

But it's also a changing company, one that's no longly simply "the everything store," but an entity creeping its way into everything we do from shop to play games to run our small businesses.

See Also:

9 Impressive Stats About Twitch That Show Why Amazon Just Purchased It For $970 MillionYahoo Also Offered To Buy $970 Million Twitch Before Amazon Swooped InHere's Why Amazon Just Paid Nearly $1 Billion For A Site Where You Watch People Play Video GamesTwitch CEO: Here's Why We Sold to Amazon For $970 MillionAmazon Buys Twitch For $970 Million In Cash